Earth Children Are Weird
by deathraptor22
Summary: Part 13 of the Semi-Domestic Adventures Series. On the word of a friend, Mulder and Scully take Sam to children's book reading and finds the character's are rather-familiar.


**Disclaimer: I do not own the X-Files nor do I own this book. Really, I don't even own a copy.**

 **AN: So, this is an actual children's book, it's called The X-Files: Earth Children Are Weird, and it might be a bit of a cash grab but it's the most adorable thing ever.**

Mulder and Scully tentively walked into the book with Sam at their side, approaching the front desk. "Excuse me," Scully asked the cashier, a young man with dark-rimmed glasses. "We're looking for the children's reading that's happening today."

"Right over there in the kids' section." The cashier informed them, pointing towards a series of shelves, underneath which was bright multi-colored carpeting and painting of the sun and a frog on the wall.

"Thanks." Scully replied, walking in that direction.

"I still don't understand how this Smith woman wrote a children book based on us." Mulder whispered to her. Among other issues their misadventures didn't really strike him as family friendly.

"I don't think it's actually based on us, I think it was based on the movie—that was based on us." Scully whispered back.

"Oh, dear God, that's even worse." Mulder lamented, as he still loathed the fictional versions of him and his partner.

"We don't know if it's really based on it yet." Scully assured him, "I couldn't find any affiliation with the film and my friend just said it reminded her of us. It could be a complete coincidence."

Sam joined the other children on the mat while Mulder and Scully blended in with the parents who had stayed. Soon after they arrived in girl in the store's uniform with smooth dark hair came up. "Ah, welcome everyone. Today we have very special guest, everyone gives a warm welcome to arthour and isolator of the _Builder Brothers_ series and _The Golden Touch,_ Kim Smith."

As the room clapped a woman with brown eyes and long brown hair came up to the chair. "Thank you, everyone." She said, sitting down, "I would like to read you my newest story today, _Earth Children are Weird."_ As she said that she held the book up for them all to see. On the cover were two children, a boy in a girl, holding flashlights in the air with looks of bewilderment on their faces. The boy, who's jacket sported an alien face, had short somewhat floppy brown hair, and the girl had short red hair. Pointing at each child in turn, saying, "It's about two children, who go on an adventure."

"So much was that." Mulder murmured to Scully.

"That proves nothing." Scully insisted, "We haven't had those hair styles in years."

Kim Smith turned to the inside page, revealing a forest filed with glowing eyes. "Ooh, look at all the eyes in the forest."

This seem to get the children hooked, as, except for some squirming, they all seemed focused on her.

Turning the pages to reveal the sunsetting on a few trees, Kim Smith read again, "Earth children are weird. She turned the page to reveal two more pages, a picture on each one. The first picture was of fenced in back yard where there sat a yellow tent, two shadows inside. The other was inside the tent, both kids had their flashlights out and on, while the little redhaired girl read from a book, her word incased in a bubble, "…then the alien spaceship vanished into the sky, and it was never seen again. THE END." From the look on his face, the boy wasn't enjoying it. He seemed rather scared.

"See?" Scully whispered to Mulder, "I would never read something that."

"Not even when you were a kid?" Mulder countered, "Not even for fun on camping trip?"

"Okay, maybe then." Scully conceded.

Kim flip the page, revealing a new set of pictures and new set of speech bubbles to go along with it. The first took up its entire page. The boy was hugging his pillow and flashlight for dear life, saying via green speech bubble, "That was REALLY scary, Dana. Maybe we could sleep inside the house?" The girl, Dana apparently responded with her own speech bubble saying, "Don't be silly, Fox! You know aliens aren't real."

Did you hear that Scully?" Mulder asked, forgetting to whisper, "Their names are Dana and _Fox. "_ He could buy the name Dana being a coincidence, but Fox wasn't exactly in the top one hundred names. "And _Dana,_ doesn't think aliens are real."

Scully hated to admit it, but he had a point there.

I the next picture, which was actually three different pictures of the inside of the tent, surrounded by white, as Dana put up the book in a green pack, little Fox, one hand in a bowel of popcorn and his flashlight raised to heavens was saying, "But the universe has billions of planets!" The diminutive redhead had speech bubble responding, "So?"

"Okay, that seems accurate." Mulder conceded. That was when somebody ssshed them.

Below that picture, was another. "So, is it crazy to think that ONE other planet might have intelligent life?" The boy's new speech bubble challenged. "Here we go again…" The girl's speech bubble responded.

"We don't own the female-septic, male believer dynamic." Scully reasoned in a whisper, "We don't even know she's septic, she might just have a crazy friend."

"And if one other planet sent a UFO to Earth…" The boy continued in the finial image, clearly worried while his friend listened with her hands on her face, leaned in. The page was turned again, revealing a picture that took up both paged the tent was being assaulted by a bright light and both kids had their mouth open in a scream, flashlight and popcorn bowl flying. There was another speech bubble above the boy's head. "AAAAAAAH! It's happening! The aliens are coming!"

"I hope they didn't want popcorn." Mulder quipped.

The children were enthralled, several leaning in, a couple covering their eyes, as the page was flipped. In a picture once again encompassing two pages, the children had braved the outside, and found, as the little Dana' green speech bubble was pointing out, "That's just the porch light, silly!" The page was turned again, revealing two pictures. The first was a woman with haircuts like the girl's only brown, and bald man, staking their head out the doors of the house. "Dana, Fox, we told you to turn off those flashlights!" The woman's bubble was saying. "It's time for bed." The man and his bubble added.

"You see? No aliens!" Little Dana's bubble told a rather disappointed looking Fox. The page was turned to a both page covering picture covering both pages where a scared little Fox was undeterred. "But how do you explain that TERRIFYING SHADOW?" And indeed, the flashlight's beams had landed on a shed of some sort, and there indeed as a shadow that looked a bit like the creature from _Alien_ except with two legs it was standing on, two hands or something, and a tail. It was actually sort of terrifying. But the next page had two pictures, the first revealing a chocolate brown dog with bits of white, standing on two feet, the other two in the air. "It's just Buster! Here, boy!" Dana called out in a speech bubble.

"Oh, thank God it wasn't named Queequeg." Scully sighed.

The next page had two images, the first Dana on her knees saying, "There's a good dog!" In the next image Dana was saying, "It told you there was nothing to worry about." Little Fox seemed a little unsure. The arthour/illustrator turned the page, revealing little Fox and little Dan and their flashlight beams shining down on what looked like a huge footprint with two toes, as Buster sniffed the down. There was a speech bubble over Fox that asked, "But what could have made this GIANT FOOTPRINT?" Turning the page, the children were not standing in the "footprint" and Dana had a bubble over her head, "Don't you remember? We're getting a new swimming pool!" In the next picture, which had two white-surrounded images again, Dana and Buster somehow got their hands on the plans for said pool. "They must have started digging this morning!" Dana's speech bubble said.

"How did she get the schematics?" Mulder asked.

This time, a little girl on the rug turned around a finger to her lips. "Sssh!"

"Alright, alright," Mulder surrendered, "Sorry."

In the other image, Buster and Fox were out of the hole, Fox helping Dean out as he said via bubble, "Oh, right. I forgot…" The page was turned to another two-page picture, the children were out by the gate and a sound was going "Hoo Squee- hoo Squee-hoo squee-hoo." A frightened looking little Fox was asking in speech bubble, "But what's making that AWFUL ALIEN NOISE?!"

"I'm with the kid on this one." Mulder commented.

The page was flip to another two-page picture, the kids and dog had walked through the gate, and were now looking for the source of the noise, which had gotten bigger, written across the pages. "Squee-hooo squee-hoo squee-hooo squee-hoo." Now both children looked worried.

"Okay, this seems familiar." Scully admitted.

Kim lifted the page revealing two pictures, in the first the kid, standing under a tree with a tire swing, with a " _SQUEE"_ by it, where they had found an owl, " _Hoo."_ In the next picture, the first image had Dana was lying in a swing, a speech bubble over her head. "It's just an owl! And the old tire swing!"

"See?" Scully said, "Just and owl in the old tire swing."

The same picture showed Dana, Fox and Buster walk down the way, Fox admitted, "I guess I do have a really wild imagination."

"Well, I wouldn't say _that_ wild." Mulder murdered.

"At least he sticks to aliens." Scully commented.

The paged was turned to another two-page picture of the kids walking through the trees. Dana was saying, "That's the smartest thing you've said all night. All this talk about UFOs, it's crazy!"

In spite of herself Scully smirked, suppressing a giggle.

"I wouldn't laugh just yet." Mulder whispered over to her, "Look in the corner of the left page."

Scully did, and in the bushes was…a saucer.

Kim was also pointing that out to her audience, "Do you see something that's not normal in this picture?"

Several children, Sam included, nodded, and other children said, "Yes," or "Yeah."

The next page was also a full-page scene, as at least five green-skinned, blue-dressed aliens watched the children from behind the trees, as a giant alien with an elongated head and a tail stood behind Buster, who turned to look at him, thought apparently felt no need to alert his companions. Unwire of any of this, Fox was saying via speech bubble, "I'm sorry I got carried away. "Dana had a speech bubble that said, "That's okay, Fox. You're still my best friend."

Some of the both, kids and adults went "Aw," at that. Those that weren't tense, waiting to see what was going to happen.

The page was turned, this time with two pictures. The first showed Fox and Dana taking off their shoes in front of their tent. The tent was partially opened, and there was light coming out of it. Dana didn't notice here mouth in yawn as she said, "Now let's go inside and get some sleep." The next picture had Fox, barefoot and on his knee, asking, "Wait, did you leave tent unzipped?" Dana, standing up now, responded with, "No, did you?" Turning the page again, the next picture showed the two kids poked their heads into the tent, to find two aliens, one reading from the book from the beginning of the story, the other eating the popcorn, which the children must have gotten another bowl of at some point. They both had blue speech bubbles above them, but the words were written in a series of character the adduce assumed was supposed to be alien. Kim just made weird noises with her tongue for those bubbles.

"Why would alien writing have an explanation point in it?" Mulder whispered.

The page had both children, perhaps understandably, screaming, "AHHHHH!" "AHHHHH!" The aliens were also screaming, one shouting "SQUEE!" the other shouting "HOOO!" The next two pages, all one picture, showed the terrified children and dog running away from the tent to the right, presumably towards the house, while the equally terrified aliens lepted out of the tent, running to the left, presumably back to the woods and the safety of their spaceship, all the while everyone was still screaming, though there were no words on the page this time. The next pages show Dana and Fox running in the house, running up the stairs, Fox in the lead while Buster went to Dana's father, who was looking up from his reading, while Dana's mother looked up from her knitting. "What's all the fuss?" Dana's father was asking in a bubble "Everything okay?" Dana's mother's bubble was asking. There was speech bubble over Dana's head as well as she insisted, "Everything's fine. We're gonna sleep upstairs!"

"Why is she saying everything's fine?" Mulder whispered, "Everything's not fine, kid, your yard's been invaded!"

Kim flipped the page again, revealing two pictures, the first of Dana's parent's both with speech bubbles above them. "Well, that was a close call." Her father's bubble said, "Definitely. But it sounds like they're asleep now." Her mother's bubble said. But it sounds like they're asleep now. In the next page, everything was covered by a bright white light, except for the parents and the dog who appeared to be…pulling off their heads revealing something green underneath.

"No…" Scully breathed. They wouldn't.

Sure enough, the final page of revealed that Dana was the daughter of two bald, round-headed, green skinned aliens, with a dog with two antennas and four eyes. "Ah," Kim breathed as she the alien mother's speech bubble, though it was not on the page, "Earth children are weird." The father's bubbled agreed with a "SQUEE-HOOO." The dog was speaking in more aliens' characters, so Kim made more sounds with her tongue.

"Oh, that is crap!" Scully exclaimed, brushing out from the crowd, "My parents were _not_ aliens!"

"Dana, Dana," Mulder began, having a little Freudian slip as he stepped out of the crowd and took a hold of his wife, "Calm down. It's not that big of deal."

"That's easy for you to say, the didn't make _your_ parents aliens!" Scully countered, still trying to get at the writer, "Which, by the way, would have been crazy appropriate!"

"You have to go there?" Mulder responded, letting go of her for a minute and gesturing widely, before realizing there was more important issues right now, "Never mind. Look, this isn't the time nor the place. You're the rational one, remember?"

"Right," Scully said, taking a deep slow breath in and out.

However, it was still late, as everyone was staring at them and Sam was really freaked out.

"Papa," She asked, "Is Mommy okay?"

"Yeas, sweetie," Scully assured, picking her up, "Mommy's okay. We just—need to leave now." After a beat she looked around the room, saying, "Sorry."

"All part of the show, people." Mulder tried, thought he didn't think it would work.

"I have a question," Sam called out, wanting it answered before they went, "Does that mean Dana's an alien?"

There were several nods and "Yeah," of agreement from the children, sometimes both.

"I'd have to say to Dana's adopted." Kim answered, trying to not to appeared to phased by the outburst.

The family fled the bookstore. "Okay, we can never go to that bookstore again." Scully declared in a low voice, "Possibly any bookstore." After a beat she added, "Sorry I lost control back there."

"It's okay, Scully." Mulder assured her, slipping his hand into her, "You're still my best friend."


End file.
